h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm all for hypothesising when the facts aren't known. The subsequent observations are then potentially usable to refute the hypothesis . This can also be said if the research to follow is just a survey of the existing information.

Having said that, the logic dictates that I now have no choice but to go and review what is already known. Ho hum - life seems to be just one long research project!

From a swift trawl it seems that recent surveys suggest that male gays outnumber lesbians by just about two to one. For example: http://www.adherents.com/adh_dem.html

It's a difficult issue - there are questions of how to collect accurate data, and whether people collecting data have an agenda of their own, whatever that agenda may be.

If considering people with exclusively same-sex orientation, it might be relatively easy *if* people feel able to be honest, and there isn't selection bias in choosing who to ask.

When it comes to bisexuality, it could be trickier.
For example, if you count people who only had same-sex feelings or activity for a brief time when young, that could be accurate in one sense, but when it comes to discrimination legislation, for the vast bulk of their life such people may not be at risk of discrimination on the basis of sexuality, and so may essentially be unaffected by such legislation.

(Fanny)
>> I didn't know about Eleanor Roosevelt

She was the most famous one, surely? There are some who maintain that 'there is no conclusive evidence.' But then, some people don't believe her husband was disabled.


tangentially...I've just finished 'Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford.' She has quite a bit about how at her level of society, it was considered no big deal which way one swung. She carried this attitude forward to her CP days.

>>It's a difficult issue - there are questions of how to collect accurate data

Indeed. Is there any data on married MSMs? (Or WSWs?)

>>She was the most famous one, surely<< Ed

I suppose we all have unexpected holes in our general knowledge, and to quote Rumsfeldt, "there are some things we don't know, we don't know" But I now know I know it. .

Just one flaw in the 'famous' argument - Thomas Crapper was the most famous inventor of something he didn't invent.

>> If considering people with exclusively same-sex orientation, it might be relatively easy *if* people feel able to be honest, and there isn't selection bias in choosing who to ask. <<

Well, sure. Then again maybe there's a bias in honesty between males and females; or at least those of same sex orientation - which takes us back to Echo's point.

Surely we can assume avoidance of the basic error of experimenter bias as well as sampling errors. I admit these certainly aren't unknown. Then again, more subtle confounding variables have to be considered - beyond the level of 'mere' methodology.

So my 'quick scan' may be misleading; and I've now forgotten why the question was asked!

It was whether there are more gay men than women.

Another source of bias, of course, is the obvious social pressure (less in recent years, but still very powerful) to choose a monogamous, heterosexual identity. There may well be some of us who, all things being equal, wouldn't mind chopping and changing but who have settled on a conventional pattern.

The same is true, to an extent, 'on the other side' - pressure not to abandon the brethren/sistren.

And I would also hypothesise that the state of sexual equality is such that more women than men might find it convenient/necessary to settle into a heterosexual relationhip.

Conjecture, conjecture, conjecture. Finding out will tell us very little about how we should conduct our society. Best to just accept that humans are capable of a glorious variety of sexual behaviour, and so what?

>>Best to just accept that humans are capable of a glorious variety of sexual behaviour, and so what?<<

Hallelujah! And so say all of us!

And we should also keep in mind that that even the best survey will only represent the opinions of those who wished to take the survey. Given the amount of clipboards I've dodged over the years, and given the amount of other people doing the same, I'd be forced to admit that on the whole, a significant percentage of the population never give their opinions at all.

On the other hand, Kinsey's methods proved... surprisingly informative.

(Amongst other things he discovered that about 8% of men have had some form of sexual contact with an animal. That's not the kind of information people are likely to proudly volunteer.)

(And wasn't it 30% of men who'd had a same sex experience?)

Clearly there are problems with surveys about some subjects:

' In questions about church attendance, though, one item has bothered sociologists for decades; the percentage of Americans claiming that they attended religious services at least once a week has not changed in the past thirty years, hovering near 40% of respondents. That figure may well be inflated, though, suggests new research, including a study reported recently in the Washington Post. Conducted by sociologist Stanley Presser of the University of Maryland and research assistant Linda Stinson of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it indicates that a more accurate assessment of church attendance data shows only 26% of Americans regularly attending church -- a drop from the 42% reported in 1965.

The new research employs a novel technique, that of checking diaries completed in the mid-1960s through the 1990s. The Post reports that the analysis "reveals a discrepancy between the diaries and the polls, and suggests that many Americans have been misreporting how they spend their Sunday mornings, inflating estimates of church attendance by perhaps as much as a third."'

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/church1.htm

I thought the general idea was that Kinsey is one of the least reliable sources of information on sexuality, possibly even less dependable than the well-known source known as "Fat Bloke Down The Pub"?

Oh, true enough there's no statistical reliability in Kinsey. *On the other hand* - his technique of interviewing 'in the wild' discovered all sorts of stuff that probably wouldn't have been reported any other way.

Apparently he liked to insert toothbrushes in his urethra.

"(Amongst other things he discovered that about 8% of men have had some form of sexual contact with an animal. That's not the kind of information people are likely to proudly volunteer.)

(And wasn't it 30% of men who'd had a same sex experience?)"

What? 30% of the 8% of men who'd had sexual contact with an animal made sure the animal was the same sex as them?

"Most Christians back gay rights - and to claim otherwise only boosts the fundamentalists"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1990324,00.html

Point taken - although my own reasons for opposing Christianity (and other faiths) are somewhat more subtle.

Subtle? :roflmao smiley:

Yeah, be fair...I think of some of you spiritual types as decent folk who have simply made a fundamental error of thinking.

I'll give you that Eddie, but some of your postings to our deluded christian members can hardly be described as subtle.

You remind me, at times, of the sacred Hooloovoo (blessed be his name).

Blessings,
Matholwch .